I think one Reddit’s poster’s point describes my own hiatus from BPL — for many months (almost a year, could it be?), BPL’s transition to a new software platform made it literally unusable.

When it takes 5 minutes to load the Recent Topics page, then another 5 minutes to load a thread, and still another 5 minutes to load each page… yeah, not worth it. I have enough frustrations in my daily life; I didn’t need the additional ones from the World’s Worst Website (WWW).

Many months later, I tried BPL again for whatever reason, and the problems have been resolved, but I totally understand that not everyone bothered to check back. Modern life -> on to the next thing!

OTOH, I haven’t explored the Reddit UL platform at all; I do know, however, that *certain* people on BPL are worth staying for… Over the years, fortunately, most of the *ssholes have come and gone — but some of the core members are people I can respect. That’s saying a lot.

Although I haven’t looked at Reddit much, when I did I found most of the discussion to be shallow or overly opinionated. A small fraction of posts seemed to reflect real knowledge and experience, but I couldn’t be sure. At BPL I’m much more confident of getting correct information based on experience.

At BPL I’m much more confident of getting correct information based on experience.

Very true. I’ve seen a lot of “common sense” type advice that is outright wrong. This is expected with less experienced hikers but due to the amount of posting and the ratio of experienced to inexperienced there’s a lot of incorrect advice that goes unchecked. As the user base matures this might be less on an issue.

Reddit in general has an issue with group-think and the downvote/upvote really encourages that behavior.

At BPL there’s an impression that UL has peaked so there’s little to discuss. I think the dwindling BPL user base vs. the growing Reddit user base indicates there is a lot of interest in the subject and much to still discuss. Pay-to-post model on BPL is a surefire way to slowly kill your community.

Oh yes. Now that BPL has ads a voluntary subscription base would be better. Free even more so. It’s not like BPL is churning out regular content anymore. And as always the gold is in the forums.

This. I come to BPL for the forums, and the people. The content is good, but I wouldn’t join for just the content. However, I joined back when a lifetime membership was $30. I joined for that, and it’s been well worth it. I wouldn’t join today with the monthly subscription plans. No way.

How many me’s are out there, not joining? Too many. If BPL gets below critical mass, then the forums fail, and BPL fails.

Oh yes. Now that BPL has ads a voluntary subscription base would be better. We could not agree more. However, as many older BPL readers will remember, after an upgrade in a commercial hacker kit (yes, you can buy them on the web), BPL was inundated by shoe spammers, selling (mostly) fake Nikes. I was deleting over 50 accounts per day. A small token subscription fee cut them off like the celebrated guillotine.

This is the only pay-to-post forum I’ve encountered in all my years of internet usage. If it was a good solution to the problem of spammers others would follow. The “solution” also directly impacts real users who would participate but balk at paying to post. It makes very poor business sense as well, since more users = more ad revenue. Slowly killing off the user base will doom the site.

This is the only pay-to-post forum I’ve encountered as well and that is why I use it.

I never thought of the pay wall as a way to stop spammers, but rather as a way to stop casual commenters/trolls. I assume the only people posting here are people who care about the topics. Also the price to post is comparable to park entry fees or camp stove fuel costs; it shouldn’t prevent people who partake in backpacking from being able to post.

This forum format is far better for information sharing and cataloging than reddit (made for entertainment) or social media (made for being social). Other websites of this format that are free to post are struggling to get by on ad revenue/sponsorships alone.

At BPL there’s an impression that UL has peaked so there’s little to discuss. I think the dwindling BPL user base vs. the growing Reddit user base indicates there is a lot of interest in the subject and much to still discuss.

This kept me from posting more and spending endless hours searching. Of course, for the most part, it stays civil here.